Luhmann's Systems Theory and the Question of the Mass Media

摘要

The system of the mass media is a more complex case of autopoiesis than any of the other functional systems of society. It allows for description as both an autopoietic and allopoietic system. This conclusion is reached on the basis of a thorough analysis of Luhmann's The Reality of the Mass Media against the background of his project as a whole. Main points of discussion are the differences between Luhmann's two magna opera, Social Systems and Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, in respect to their different theoretical foci, as well as the so-called Luhmann-Habermas controversy, which is examined as a controversy between the social sciences and the humanities concerning the humanity and legitimacy of their corresponding methodologies. It is emphasized that a theory of the medium is needed for a better understanding of the world of systems. Attention is drawn to a structural peculiarity of the mass media system, namely, it is a system with reversed references such that its self-reference is directed towards "the other" and its other-reference is directed towards the self. Finally, the social function of the mass media is discussed as residing in the fact that they represent a "generalized other" for all social systems and thus are an important factor in the "secondary socialization" of social systems. Habermas' public sphere, freed from its class context, is discussed in terms of a movement of people as collective users and producers of the main social medium (language) that concludes with the institutionalization of the mass media.